Stoic Failings and What They Can Teach Us About the Art of Living

Most of the articles and books written about the history of Stoic philosophers focus on their success stories; rightfully so, as there are many of them to tell. We read about the slave made freer than his master through self-discipline, the lone senator who fought against tyranny and who, though defeated, was never conquered, and finally about the philosopher king who led his country through civil strife, foreign wars, and a deadly plague. The Stoic school, like any other philosophical school, was made up of human beings: Men and women with passions, desires, temptations, and fears that they spent their lives trying to tame. What, if anything, can we learn from the examples of Stoic failure? Principally, we can learn humility. For if even these masters of self-control could fail, so too can we. More broadly, we can recount their errors in the hope that they will allow us to see that which was obscured from these Stoics by passion and fear in their own time.

Seneca: The Embers of the Fire that Consumed Rome

Lucius Annaeus Seneca was one of the greatest Stoic philosophers of all time. Even today, 2,000 years after his death, Seneca’s works are popular among those seeking inner peace and self-control. Yet, for all his brilliance, self-mastery, and steadfast ability to endure the great hardships of disease and exile, his political legacy, and indeed his demise, would be defined by his worst student: Nero.

Seneca was an erudite youth. Born far from Rome in the distant backwater of Hispania, his future as a legal and political powerhouse was nonetheless virtually assured as he climbed the ranks of mos maiorum; the stepladder of Roman politics which all aspiring political actors had to climb. However, sometime around 20 AD Seneca would be forced to leave Rome so that his aunt could treat his illness, probably tuberculosis, in Egypt. He would live away from the hustle and bustle of the eternal city for 10 years, while his aunt treated his symptoms, and though he would eventually heal and return to Rome, his illness would harry him for the rest of his life. Sometime after his return to Rome, he would again have to leave, this time for political reasons. The new emperor of Rome, Claudius, was convinced by his wife Messalina that Seneca had committed adultery with a woman named Julia Livilla and he was exiled to the island of Corsica.

While on Corsica, we can see the seeds of Seneca’s greatest failure sprouting: his inability to stand up to vile and corrupt emperors. In the hopes of being recalled from his exile on Corsica, Seneca penned a work entitled Consolation to Polybius, which made several blandishments to the emperor aimed at receiving an official recall to the capital. It worked. In 49 AD, Agrippina, Nero’s mother, asked Claudius to recall Seneca from exile so that he might tutor her son; the emperor approved. Upon his return to Rome, Seneca spent several years tutoring the boy, hoping to make some appreciable impact on the affairs of state through him.

He failed. Seneca tried as best he could to live life on a knife’s edge, balancing his Stoicism which admonished those who sought political power above all else, and his personal-political ambition to serve in positions of immense power. He was, to be entirely fair, not hired to teach the young boy philosophy per se. Seneca was chosen by Agrippina because of his famed oratory prowess, a skill that nearly saw him executed years earlier by emperor Caligula. The ability to make grand speeches would not make Nero a good emperor. If anything, it made the petulant boy-king more effective at forcing his hedonistic will on the people of Rome.

Despite being placed in a difficult situation, Seneca failed in taming the boy, which would have disastrous consequences for Rome. Seneca’s essays written on morality and addressed to the emperor, though well thought-out and powerful in their own right, were hollow platitudes when compared to the strict, no-bullshit message Nero needed. Later Stoics, like Junius Rusticus (who appears in this article for his own failings), would not hesitate to be blunt, even when teaching emperors. This weakness in Seneca would help to breed a killer and a tyrant.

Nero was indeed a monster. He ordered the killing of his own mother, killed his political opponents (including Gaius Rubellius Plautus, a Stoic philosopher and a good man), and plunged the empire into economic ruin. While it is probably not true that Nero played the fiddle as Rome burned, as the popular legend goes, he certainly did not let the great fire of Rome go to waste as an opportunity to show off his depravity. Nero rebuilt much of the destroyed city for his personal use, erecting palaces and statues while Romans went homeless. He also raised taxes on the provinces to pay for the restitution of the city, in stark contrast to Marcus Aurelius who would sell the imperial possessions rather than levy a ruinous tax on his own people.

The tale of Seneca and Nero reminds us of a key Stoic principle: that we must always do what we know to be right, regardless of the consequences. As Marcus Aurelius says in Meditations, the most important thing in life is “just that you do the right thing. The rest doesn’t matter. Cold or warm. Tired or well-rested.” Seneca would redeem himself in the end, returning to fully embodying Stoic principles in his retirement and, like Socrates or Thrasea, dying the heroic death of a philosopher dedicated to his principles. It is important to note that none of us can know how we would react if placed in his position. Many of us who judge Seneca would almost certainly have fared much worse with a knife to our throat. However, it is important to learn one key lesson from the failings of this great man: problems only get worse if ignored, and if ignored for too long enough they will consume you whole.

Nero wasn’t in Rome when the city burned in 64 AD, but the popular myth of Nero and his fiddle captures something fundamental about the essence of the man.

Rusticus Executes a Good Man

If you ask a Stoic about Junius Rusticus, he or she will likely know him as a positive figure; a teacher and a good Stoic who served his country and taught Stoicism to perhaps the greatest Stoic who ever lived. If you ask a Christian, however, you will likely be met with a different response. To them, Rusticus represents the same unjust force that beleaguered early Christians, that threw them to the lions and crucified them. It serves as a good example of the principle that even a life lived through virtue can be altered by one single decision.

Rusticus, the grandson of a proud member of the so-called “Stoic resistance” movement, was a good man. He was a soldier, a politician, and a philosopher who served his friends, family, and country. He served first as a soldier, fighting for the glory of Rome, and through merit and skill he worked his way up to becoming a General. Under emperor Hadrian, he would serve as consul of Rome and be appointed by the same as the teacher of the future emperor: Marcus Aurelius.

After Marcus Aurelius became emperor in 161 AD upon his adopted father’s death, Rusticus was appointed to various positions of power in the government. First, he served his second term as consul of Rome, once his term as consul ended, he would serve as Urban Prefect; a position that would define his legacy. As the Stoic author Ryan Holiday puts it in his book, The Lives of the Stoics, the urban prefect was essentially the mayor of Rome. As the urban prefect, Rusticus had complete legal authority within 100 miles of Rome and was charged with the task of maintaining law and order.

The burgeoning Christian sect would prove an effective challenge to Roman authority. It is not so much that the Romans were motivated by religious zeal in their conflict with the Christians; citizens and merchants were wary of them, and politicians feared their loyalty. If, those in power thought, these Christians do not acknowledge any gods but their one “true” God, then they must deny the holy nature of the office of the emperor, and thus are traitors to the state. Years before, emperor Trajan had actually criminalized Christianity on pain of death, though Christians were not actively sought out, they would be killed for not recognizing the Roman pantheon of Gods.

This came to a head in 165 AD when a Cynic named Crescens denounced a man named Justin following a dispute. Justin was dragged before Junius Rusticus to be tried. Justin and Rusticus, under any other circumstances, would have been fast friends. In fact, Justin had been a Stoic earlier in his life, though he left the school to become a Christian. Even if Justin had not been a Stoic, he might have expected lenience and clemency from Rusticus. After all, was Justin not standing up for his principles? Was he not practicing wisdom and courage in standing up to the might of Rome for his cause? Their trial is recorded for us in the Acts of Justin, in which a conversation between the prefect Rusticus and Justin goes like this: “Rusticus the prefect said, let us, then, now come to the matter in hand, and which presses. Having come together, offer sacrifice with one accord to the gods. Justin said, No right-thinking person falls away from piety to impiety. Rusticus the prefect said, unless you obey, you shall be mercilessly punished. Justin said, through prayer we can be saved on account of our Lord Jesus Christ, even when we have been punished, because this shall become to us salvation and confidence at the more fearful and universal judgment-seat of our Lord and Savior.”

Which man sounds more Stoic in this encounter? Rusticus comes across as a despotic torturer killing a man he had the power to slap on the wrist and pass on for no reason. Junius Rusticus ordered Justin to be executed, and within the year he was beheaded. At the time, Rome’s wars and a deadly plague that would ultimately claim the emperor and 5 to 10 million souls across the empire distracted from the trial of Justin Martyr; history would remember the event better than those who lived it. The tale of Rusticus and Justin is a reminder to us to live the Stoic virtue of justice. We need to see situations from other perspectives, and we should be as lenient and charitable as we possibly can be with our fellow man. As Rusticus’ student, Marcus Aurelius would write in Meditations, “I have seen the beauty of good, and the ugliness of evil, and have recognized that the wrongdoer has a nature related to my own — not of the same blood and birth, but the same mind, and possessing a share of the divine. And so, none of them can hurt me. No one can implicate me in ugliness. Nor can I feel angry at my relative or hate him. We were born to work together like feet, hands and eyes, like the two rows of teeth, upper and lower. To obstruct each other is unnatural. To feel anger at someone, to turn your back on him: these are unnatural.”

Rusticus failed in this task and is now remembered as a monster by millions. Remember to act with justice and kindness, even, perhaps especially, when it is hard to do so.

Christians were often executed for failing to honor the Roman gods, their belief being confused with a refusal to acknowledge the supremacy of the Roman emperor.

“Life is very short and anxious for those who forget the past, neglect the present, and fear the future” — Seneca